Apparently some people have found this ad, being run by Absolut Vodka in Mexico, offensive. At a poll on La Plaza, an LA Times blog, 62% of the nearly 40,000 respondents chose “The ad is an affront to Americans. I’m going to boycott the product.” It shows the border as it was before the American Mexican War in the middle of the 19th century. To me, it looks kind of like a reversal of Manifest Destiny.
Your reaction/thoughts?
 I grew up in a fundamentalist, right wing, independent Baptist church. One of the things we were taught was that it was right and “Biblical” for Jews to have a state in Palestine, and that therefore we, as good American Christians, ought to promote the existence, welfare, and possibly even the expansion of the state of Israel. The Palestinians never really got mentioned.
So I’ve had to undergo a bit of a reeducation process. Among other things, I now realize that things are never that simple, that finding a best way forward to MTWABP in Israel/Palestine is a hell of a tall order. It *seems* to me that both world and U.S. media and political ideation and action about the whole thing is rather enormously tilted in favor of the Jews and against the Palestinians. But this is of course a seeming, and I haven’t quantified it.
Recently I found a website that attempts to quantify it, called IfAmericansKnew.org. Here are some of the stats they cite.
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What links the whole UK population, an arms manufacturer and the US Patriot Act?
Answer - the 2011 UK census.
The UK Office of National Statistics is the government department charged with collecting and analysing the nation’s statistics. They conduct a complete national census every 10 years of the 56-odd million people who live in the UK.
Hidden in their information about the 2011 census, is this paragraph:
Two suppliers, Lockheed Martin UK and T-Systems International, have been shortlisted and each awarded a contract to provide services for the 2007 Census Test in May. Following this test, further performance evaluation of the two shortlisted suppliers will be carried out, and one supplier will be awarded the contract to design (with the authorities) and deliver the 2009 Census Rehearsal and the 2011 Census.
That is Lockheed Martin UK as in Lockheed Martin one of the biggest arms manufacturers on the planet.
So it appears that in order to collect personal information about our lives, the government has decided to employ an arms company. As you do.
Now, if that is not bad enough, The US Patriot Act apparently states that the US authorities can demand that any US business hand over records to the intelligence authorities. Which means that every British citizen mentioned in the census could potentially have all of their personal data in the hands of the US government, information which is not available in the UK for 50 years. If our government hasn’t already lost it in the mail, that is.
Posted in Nationalism, Politics | 10 Comments »This year at Thanksgiving I realized how radically my story about Thanksgiving has changed over the last while. The story about Thanksgiving with which I was raised is more or less summarized in this Chuck Colson commentary from last Thursday. Chuck tells this story about the “pilgrims”:
In April of 1623—three years after the first Pilgrims landed—the transplanted Englishmen and women planted corn and other crops. A good harvest was essential to their survival. But in the weeks following the planting, it became clear that a dry spell was turning into a drought.
Pilgrim father Edward Winslow recorded their distress in his diary. “It pleased God, for our further chastisement,” he wrote, “to send a great drought; insomuch as in six weeks . . . there scarce fell any rain.” The crops began to shrivel up “as though they had been scorched before the fire . . . God,” Winslow wrote, “which hitherto had been our only shield and supporter, now seemed in His anger to arm Himself against us. And who can withstand the fierceness of His wrath?”
Posted in Forgiveness, Nationalism, Poverty, Religion, United States | 6 Comments »
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the myth of veterans day
Monday, November 12th, 2007Words from the Wikipedia article on veterans day: heroes. honor. service. tribute. grateful nation. homage. solemnly remember. sacrifices. fought valiantly. preserve heritage of freedom. an enduring peace.
Words from George Bush’s speech today, on veterans day: good. noble. just. promise. sacrifice. honor. blessed. brave. service. valiantly. free. home. magnificent. proud. victory. safely.
why all these words? These words are being used to create/propogate a myth. By “myth” I mean “a traditional or sacred story that attempts to iterate, explain, or justify the thoughts and actions of a people”.
Posted in Nationalism, Peace, War | 41 Comments »Read the rest of this news item »
Pro Israel?
Wednesday, October 24th, 2007My lovely mum posted this on her blog recently. For some context, Papaw and Mamaw were the pastor and pastor’s wife of what was basically the first ever Christian church that my family was involved with, when I was 10, 11, and 12 years old, ‘84 through ‘87.
Papaw told us an encouraging story when we visited him and Mamaw. He said that the church he fellowships with — I think it was called Cornerstone Baptist Church — began to fly not only the American flag and the Texas flag but also the Israeli flag. Since the Bible does speak a lot about Israel and the Jewish people being God’s chosen nation/people — they wanted to identify with/promote that Biblical idea. One day, though, someone burned their Israeli flag. This prompted all kinds of national and international media attention and the church was thus able to explain/expand on their position to an ever-widening circle of people. One person called and told them he would love to send them another Israeli flag, and yet another if the first one he sends gets burned.
According to the church’s pastor, the Rev. Bobby Herrel, Cornerstone Baptist began flying the Israeli flag last July to support the Israeli people during its conflict with Lebanon
How best to communicate to my lovely mum that the international community was outraged, in that particular Israel/Lebanon conflict, by Israel’s use of U.S. made cluster weapons, the use of which amounts to wide scale land mining of your enemies’ land, leading to large numbers of civilian casualties, especially of children, long after the hot conflict is over (40 years!!)? Yes, of course Hezbollah *also* failed to follow international law in that conflict. That hardly seems like a good reason to come out as pro Israel during the conflict. Most of the civilian casualties even during the hot conflict were Lebanese ~1000 dead Lebanese civilians, ~43 dead Israeli civlians. Wow this is a gruesome math. How can a Christian church be in favor of any of this? And if they must take sides, how is it that they take the side of the nation which was apparently far less careful about civilian deaths, both during and after the conflict? I’m guessing that the people in this church are … relatively normal, compassionate, people. How could they take such a position? How does the Muslim community in their town (Fort Worth, Texas) feel about them flying that Israeli flag, especially as it was in response to that particular Lebanese/Israeli conflict? I’m guessing that as a minority in a predominately white, Christian, American community, the Muslim community feels marginalized and put down in really painful ways all the time. Don’t the people of Cornerstone Baptist care about this? Do they know?
I really love my mum. And she represents some really big chunk of the American populace. Can they see this stuff? Can you see it? How to share it without automatically raising a wall? Maybe it’s impossible. Maybe I lack the social intelligence to accomplish it. Your thoughts, answers, questions, comments?
Posted in Nationalism, Racial Justice, United States, War | 6 Comments »
"The Commons"--two world views.
Wednesday, September 19th, 2007I recently finished Kathleen Kennedy Townsend’s recent book Failing America’s Faithful: How Today’s Churches are mixing God with Politics and Losing Their Way I found it very readable, and I wanted to share a couple fascinating quotes which she shares. They touch on something my lovely Australian wife, Meg, has said to me countless times since we moved back to the U.S. in 2001. Meg has said innumerable times “People here just don’t understand the concept of the commons.”
In 1968, the British journalist David Frost interviewed my father [Robert Kennedy] and aksed him, “What do you think we are on earth for?” My father answered,
Posted in Book Reviews, Economics, Interviews, Nationalism, United States | 9 Comments »Read the rest of this news item »
Is national interest an acceptable moral standard?
Thursday, June 7th, 2007On the What does it mean to “die for your country?” thread, David H. left this thought-provoking comment:
The problem for me is that I can’t find where Christ allows national interests to be part of the equation on the value of any human life. If Christ is my King, if his kingdom is my ultimate citizenship, then I must have different allegiances and values…
My problem is with the leaders blindly pursuing “American interests” regardless of the cost to others. Has their effort made the world a better or safer place? How many wars need to be fought before they learn that violence, whether pre-emptive or reactionary (if the difference can even be told anymore), only results in more violence?
David raises an important question. Is national interest an acceptable moral bottom line, for the United States or for any nation?
Posted in Nationalism, War | 33 Comments »
Cry Havoc And Let Slip The Dogs Of War
Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007Julie Clawson posted the following over at Onehandclapping a couple days ago, and has kindly given us permission to repost here. I thought her insights on “perspective taking” were … painfully on the money. Thank you Julie!
A recent study being released states that military veterans are more than twice as likely to be in prison for sex crimes than are people without military experience. While veterans are less likely to be incarcerated in the first place, about a quarter of those sentences are for sex crimes against women and children. The article then claims that researchers are at a loss to understand why.
As soon as I read about these findings, I was reminded of the conversation of an Afghani woman I overhead where she discussed the American military’s behavior in Afghanistan (read my blog post about it here). Another incident of cruel and senseless violence inflicted on a child.
And they really wonder why this is an issue?
Posted in Nationalism, Violence, War | 5 Comments »
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